Thirty Kisses
by Kit Spooner
Summary: NarutoSakura oneshots to the tune of thirty kisses. It goes way beyond chemistry and crushes, baby. [ongoing, ratings vary for each story]
1. Kisses and Kettles

Introduction: This is not a single piece of fanfiction, per se. Instead these are a collection of the non-linked submissions I did for the 30kisses LiveJournal community. I selected the Naruto/Sakura pairing ('cause I have an odd sort of fascination with them). You'll notice that while the "theme" is mentioned in all these stories, it may or may not actually play much of a role. Also, there is at least one kiss in each story, be it literal or metaphorical, or even taking place between people who aren't even Naruto or Sakura. There's also a series of linked stories I'm doing for 30kisses that fall into a continuity I'm calling the "Apartment Series" despite the fact that no apartments are really involved. I'll post these under a separate heading when they're all done. For now, enjoy these one-shots. More to be added as they get written.

Title: Kisses and Kettles  
Theme: #11 - Gardenia  
Rating: PG-13/T for language

Disclaimer: The characters and situations portrayed in this story are the sole property of Kishimoto-sensei and the assorted corporate types who've bought the rights. I've merely borrowed them for my own nefarious purposes.

When the first bouquet arrived, that mid-spring morning, Naruto honestly assumed that it had been a mistaken delivery. But there, on the tag, printed in blue ink was his own name, in nondescript, feminine handwriting.

"What the fuck?" he muttered as he stared blankly at the large, fragrant flowers bundled in pink tissue.

Completely out of his element, Naruto gingerly picked up the bouquet, set it on his kitchen table and phoned up Sakura.

It was far too early in the morning for this, Naruto realized a moment later.

"What?" she snapped groggily, picking up after six rings.

"Someone sent me flowers!" Naruto blurted.

There was a pregnant pause. "And . . . ?" Sakura prompted, growing irritation evident.

"Well . . . who sent them? What do I do with them? I don't want to kill them! And who do I thank? Shit . . ." Naruto always called Sakura when he wasn't entirely sure what to do, and this instance was no exception. Her advice never failed to save his hide and it was one of the reasons he quietly adored her beyond reason.

"Put them in water, moron," Sakura said briefly before hanging up on him.

So the bundle of pale blooms and dark vegetation was dumped unceremoniously into an unused tea kettle filled with water and then promptly forgotten.

A week later, however, just as the creamy petals were beginning to brown slightly, a fresh bouquet of the same variety arrived in the same manner. This time Naruto didn't call Sakura (having learned his lesson about early-morning calls the last time). He simply tossed out the old flowers and replaced them with the new. He also made a mental note to find out who would send him such things and to possibly scrounge up a real vase for them.

After the fourth bouquet arrived, Naruto began to realize that whoever was sending him flowers was never going to simply come out and inform him of the fact.

"Someone too shy to say they've been sending me flowers, eh?" Naruto mused on his way to the Hyuuga compound. "It must be that weird, dark girl."

Once Naruto was finally led to the smallest audience chamber where Hinata was waiting patiently, he asked the all-important question.

"So was it you?"

Hinata's eyes were wide with bewilderment and her small mouth curved into an 'o' of surprise. "Wh-what?"

"Have you been sending me the flowers?" Naruto clarified.

Hinata blushed to the roots of her hair and began nervously twiddling her fingers. "W-w-well, I d-don't really know what . . ."

"Is that a yes or a no?" Naruto asked.

Hinata stared for a moment. "It . . . it wasn't me, Naruto-kun."

"Really?" Naruto had been sure that the creepy girl had been behind it. He was old enough at sixteen to know what all her staring and blushing meant. It was the sort of thing that went hand-in-hand with leaving anonymous bouquets on people's doorsteps.

"No," Hinata said, a little more firmly.

"Drat," Naruto muttered.

Hinata blushed. "Drat? You mean, you were hoping that . . ."

"No!" Naruto said quickly. "You're nice and all but, well, you know . . ."

Hinata looked as though she were about to cry.

"Well, thanks for taking the time to talk to me!" Naruto said cheerfully, hoping to stave off Hinata's Sad Face. "I need to keep searching, I guess . . ." He turned to leave.

"You . . . might want to check with Ino," Hinata added hesitantly.

Naruto blanched. "You mean _Ino_ likes me?"

"Oh, god, _no_!" Hinata blurted. Then she blushed. "At least, I really don't think so. Um. Well, it's just that her family runs the best florist in town and whoever brought you flowers probably got them there . . ."

"Ah! That makes more sense," Naruto said. "It would be really weird if Ino was sending me flowers. I mean, I always thought she and Chouji were, well, you know . . ."

"Yeah . . ." Hinata echoed.

There was a pause.

"So . . . are they?" Naruto asked curiously. "Ino and Chouji, I mean." Girls knew these things.

Hinata shrugged cryptically.

Naruto shrugged back. "Ah. Thanks anyway."

By the time Naruto had trudged over to the Yamanakas' shop, the Friday evening rush was well under way. It took several minutes before he had a chance to approach Ino, who was working behind the register.

"Hey, Ino," Naruto began.

"Naruto," Ino nodded in return. "You looking to buy something? We've got a couple specials tonight . . ."

"Nah," said Naruto.

Ino quirked an eyebrow and waited.

"Someone's been sending me flowers," Naruto explained. "A new bouquet every week."

Ino looked unsurprised.

"And I asked Hinata and she said that you might know who it was," Naruto added.

"Hmm," said Ino.

"They keep sending those flowers over there," Naruto continued, pointing at the bucket of creamy flowers near the window. "The white ones."

"Gardenias," supplied Ino. "In the language of flowers they mean 'a secret love.'"

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Well, yeah, I guess that's kind of self-explanatory. But who sent them? I need to tell them to stop since I've kind of got my heart set on a girl already . . ."

"What the fuck do I need to do to get that idiot's attention?" bellowed a familiar voice from the back room. "I suppose I could show up naked in his bed but I thought he was bright enough to figure the flowers out."

Ino sighed and placed a hand over her eyes.

"Hey, Ino-pig," Sakura asked snappishly as she stomped out into the store. "What flower means 'kiss me you jackass or I'll kill you?'"

Then she spotted the shell-shocked Naruto and fell silent, completely mortified. She stared at Naruto's surprised face for a brief moment, then her gaze fell to contemplate her shoes.

Naruto took a hesitant step toward the girl he'd had a crush on since he was a little kid. "Sakura . . ."

She didn't reply and appeared to be sidling toward the door.

"So . . . you were the one who . . . ?" Naruto was ready to cut her off should she decide to bolt.

"Yes . . ." Sakura said, looking nearly as unsure of herself as Hinata.

Naruto took another step toward her. "And . . . you want to kiss me . . . ?"

Sakura finally looked up at him. "Maybe?" she said with a very small smile.

"Might I suggest some sweetpeas?" Ino broke in with a huge smirk, gesturing toward a riot of pastel-toned flowers in a bucket. "They represent 'blissful pleasure.'"

"Shut up, Ino," Naruto told her firmly before pulling Sakura close.


	2. The Man

Title: The Man  
Theme: #9 - Dash  
Rating: PG-13/T for language (because I seem incapable of writing without the use of certain four-letter words)

Disclaimer: The characters and situations portrayed in this story are the sole property of Kishimoto-sensei and the assorted corporate types who've bought the rights. I've merely borrowed them for a brief time.

The pervy old hermit was, I suppose, kind of good for me. And while I'd never bother to call Jiraiya a _father figure_ exactly (Iruka comes closer than anyone else, I think), Jiraiya was key in imparting a certain set of . . . skills, I guess you could call them.

At the age of fifteen, I know at least three dozen excuses to toss out should I ever happen to be caught peeping at the ladies' side of a bathhouse.

I've seen dozens of naked women in my life, most of them beautiful. It's had a sort of desensitizing affect, I think. After a while, the breasts and thighs and swirls of long hair begin to blend together into a kind of bland, unremarkable archetype. I've never understood Jiraiya's obsession with peeping at random girls. I mean, sure, I like naked chicks as much as the next man, but geez, after a while you just need a break!

But this, well, _desensitization_ is as good a word as any . . . it means that despite little actual experience with girls, I don't tend to trip over my words when I have to deal with them.

I am _smooth_.

I am the _man._

Anyway, let me set the scene for you. It was a Saturday night, and I had somehow managed the impossible: Sakura had finally agreed to go out with me. And not for some stupid "just-friends" thing either. It was a _date_. A real one. Not the kind that I had to trick her into or bribe her with free food from a fancy restaurant.

We did go to a fancy restaurant, however. And the restaurant didn't carry ramen, so I kind of sulked my way through a couple orders of some spicy beef while Sakura delicately picked at the salad she'd ordered.

What's up with girls and salads anyway? Does Sakura really think she needs to lose weight? Or is she trying to prove something to me? I mean, I've seen her down a bowl of ramen nearly as fast as me, so what's the point of ordering a _salad_ on our date?

Once dinner was over and Sakura finished sneaking breadsticks when she thought I wasn't watching, we headed out to walk around a bit. I knew this would be my chance. Sakura was in a good mood after her tiny salad and all those fancy breadsticks. And when she's in a good mood, she lets me get away with a lot more.

I wanted a kiss tonight.

I was _determined _to get a kiss.

I just kept repeating to myself: I am _smooth_. I am the _man_. And I felt my confidence rise as we lingered on a small, red-painted bridge.

"I had a lot of fun tonight," Sakura said suddenly, breaking nearly a minute of vaguely-awkward silence.

"You don't have to sound so surprised, Sakura," I told her, feeling a little injured.

"That didn't quite come out right, I don't think," Sakura added quickly. "It's just that you're usually in my face the whole time and you've been acting like, well, an adult, all evening."

_Score!_

"Well, I _am_ an adult, Sakura," I noted with what I hoped was a suavely raised eyebrow. I'd seen Shikamaru use that particular maneuver on girls with great success. And I'm not above stealing techniques from my friends.

Sakura looked me over, eyes lingering for some reason on my shoulders. "Yes, you certainly are, Naruto," she murmured.

I took that as a good sign and sidled a little closer to lean on the railing next to her. I absently picked flakes of red paint off the railing to keep my hands busy.

"So," I said.

"Yes?" replied Sakura, giving me one of those half-lidded stares that always make my blood pressure rise.

You see, while I'm pretty _desensitized_ when it comes to random naked girls, Sakura _always_ affects me like this, and I've still never quite figured out why. I mean, she's not the prettiest girl I know. That'd probably be Ino, or maybe Tenten. And Hinata definitely has a better figure, all curvy and hourglass-shaped. But for some reason it's always been Sakura for me. Sakura and none other.

"Well, I'm just glad that you had a good time tonight," I replied stupidly.

_So much for suave_.

"I might even consider doing something like this again." Sakura smiled and I momentarily fumbled a chip of red paint, lodging it painfully beneath my fingernail.

_Fuck._

"How about tomorrow night?" I immediately replied, trying to ignore the excruciating pain of the paint-splinter.

"Tomorrow's Sunday," Sakura replied, vaguely taken-aback.

I shrugged. "Does it matter?" My finger throbbed and I thought it might be bleeding, though I didn't want to distract Sakura from her good mood by looking down at my war-wound.

Sakura shrugged back. "I don't know. It's just kind of a non-traditional day for a date. Unless you want to do lunch or something."

I perked up. "I could go for that . . ."

Sakura opened her mouth to respond then glanced down at my hand. "You want me to fix that for you or are you just going to suffer it stoically?"

I jumped. "Er . . . It's not that bad," I said.

Sakura rolled her eyes and grabbed the injured hand. "Hush," she murmured before focusing her chakra and getting to work.

After the initial spike of agony when Sakura pried the paint shard out with her fingernail, her chakra soothed the pain and gently knit the flesh back together. Tsunade may be a crazy, superficial old bag, but she certainly is the master of her field and she's taught Sakura well.

"There," Sakura announced once she finished tying off her handkerchief around my finger.

"Thanks," I said, distracted somewhat by the fact that she _wasn't letting go of my hand_.

This time _she_ was the one to sidle closer.

I am _smooth_. I am the _man_.

I gave her one of my patented shit-eating grins, the kind that all the younger kunoichi think is so sexy.

She eyed me through her eyelashes. "So?" she said.

"What?" I asked.

She leaned in and I felt her breath on my chin. "You gonna kiss me or what?"

I grinned wider.

I am _so_ the man.

Then I caught a whiff of her perfume. It was . . . different from whatever stuff she usually wears. She's usually a citrus girl, and my well-honed sense of smell can generally pick out the lemon from the sweet orange from the pink grapefruit. Tonight it was something irresistibly floral, violets or lilacs or lavender or _something_ purple. Something different and exotic and new. It made my whole body tremble and all I could think of was: _Do something you jackass before she thinks you're retarded you half-wit!_

_Do I kiss her? Do I make a suave comment? Do I try Shikamaru's eyebrow trick again? Fuck . . ._

This time _Sakura_ was the one to raise the single eyebrow and give me a measuring look.

_Do something!_

So I ran.

I bolted from Sakura like a frightened rabbit. I didn't even stammer out an excuse, like any normal idiot. I just ran as fast as I could into the woods.

I am so _not_ the man.

And I will _never_ live this down.


	3. The Choices She Made

Title: The Choices She Made  
Theme: #25 – Fence  
Rating: PG/K+ for vaguely adult themes of long-term unhappiness

Disclaimer: The characters and situations portrayed in this story are the sole property of Kishimoto-sensei and the assorted corporate types who've bought the rights. I've merely borrowed them for a brief time.

Notes: I made an OC because I needed a semi-innocent to watch an exchange from an exterior point of view. Someone shoot me now, please.

Uchiha Chika is completely unlike her mother.

For one, she has kissed three boys already in her life, and she is not yet thirteen. The first was the boy she intends to marry someday and he is also the boy she allowed to secretly watch her as she bathed naked by the waterfall at the edge of Konoha one pale morning a month ago. She knows, however, not to put all her bets on the same horse, so she has also kissed her close friend and her love's close friend, just to cover all her options, should her true target prove intractible.

Her mother, time-faded and weary of love, knows none of this, and likes to tell her only child stories of her first kiss, age sixteen, to the boy who she would one day marry and bear a single child for. Her father kissed her mother one evening in early summer when the frogs bellowed themselves hoarse in the thick, muggy air, straining for prospective loves. Chika's mother's description of the night is so vivid that Chika generally has to leave the house immediately afterward to fight off a nebulous sort of dread, rife with claustrophobia and the faint taste of pond-water in her mouth.

Chika never knew her father, but she's heard the stories. She knows why the other children were very careful around her when she was younger and wanted the love of every kid on the playground. Her mother explained that Uchiha Sasuke had been . . . unique, in both situation and substance, that he had been beautiful and sad and, for those last few years, completely mad. Chika was barely out of infancy when her father set the entire west side of Konoha ablaze. The conflagration had ended only when the Uchiha's doting wife had slipped a filleting knife gently between his ribs. His mind crazed with fire and fury, he never felt the strike and it took him several minutes before the blood loss slowly dropped his crumpled body down to his wife's ready lap.

When she was young, Chika's mother had been _beautiful_. Chika has seen the pictures of the bright-faced girl with hair the color of soft, baby-pink roses, one arm slung around the boy who would nearly destroy Konoha, the other around the boy who would become Hokage. To Chika, the comparison is heartbreaking. All that gorgeous, bright hair is now fine-spun rose-gold, faded to only a hint of strawberry, as though her time as an Uchiha drained her of a vitality she didn't know enough to miss.

Chika inherited her father's looks, feathery-dark hair like a crow's wing and black eyes that swirl to Sharingan-crimson when she's angry enough. She also inherited the keen insight of her father as well, a sort of brilliant adaptability and the will to get things _done._ She hasn't felt even a hint of the Uchiha madness, however, and it gives her hope for the future. There's little of her mother in her at all, in fact, perhaps only a hint in that wistful expression when Chika watches the boy she wants.

This wistful gaze is familiar to Chika since every photograph of her mother as a child features it. Chika's mother always aimed it at her dark teammate and not the golden one, not the one who's staring at her in every photograph of the team. Chika wonders how her mother missed the adoration of the fox-faced boy who remained at her side, even through the Uchiha mess.

Or perhaps she didn't, Chika thinks as she stares down into the garden from her bedroom window. Her mother is cutting peonies with a sharp knife and collecting the huge, top-heavy blossoms in an old wicker basket. She's also talking with the Hokage, who is perched atop the garden wall that fences off the Uchiha yard from the Uzumaki yard, looking closer to Chika's age than her mother's, with his robes in disarray and his hat missing entirely. Her mother tried to get Chika to call him 'Uncle Naruto' for the first few years of her life, but the 'Uncle' part never stuck and therefore he is Naruto.

He is watching her mother with such longing in his eyes that Chika would have been embarrassed, had she not been accustomed to it. As usual, her mother is looking elsewhere.

"The council believes that since the Uchiha clan has been unrepresented at the conclave for over a decade that they can begin to strip status from you guys," the man says, his voice cheerfully dismissive, despite his gaze.

Chika's mother drops a peony into the basket, the petals to dark a red they look nearly black. "What exactly does this stripped status entail?" she asks wearily, still not looking up from her garden. Chika wonders whether her mother is thinking of her child's future, or whether she's thinking of her dead husband's past.

The Hokage shrugs, his golden hair glinting in the sun. Chika thinks he's one of the most handsome men in the village, tall and broad, with eyes bluer than any sky. "Well, the seat that could _theoretically_ be taken by whoever the clan head is . . . well, that wouldn't be a possibility anymore. I think that's what the Aburame was mostly aiming for." He idly scratched his mop of disheveled hair. "But you haven't shown an interest in the council in a long time."

This is something that Chika hasn't heard of yet, so she pays attention and strains to hear her mother's quiet replies. "I'm not a true Uchiha, Naruto," she says. "I don't really think Sasuke ever intended that I become clan head." She shrugs, much like the Hokage. "Besides, Chika's too young for it, though I'd like to leave her the option when she's older and can understand the burdens of being an Uchiha."

_Like I don't already?_ Chika thinks.

Naruto's face clouds over. "Well, they also want to strip away some of the hereditary Uchiha lands and demote the family to lesser-clan status."

Chika's mother finally glances up in time to see her old friend looking unhappy and worried, instead of love-sick. "I can't allow that," her mother says.

"I know you can't," Naruto replies, and Chika knows they're talking about more than just a few out-buildings that no one uses anyway.

Not for the first time, Chika wonders what happened, all those years ago, that made her mother choose the Uchiha over the Uzumaki.

"I'll go to the council," the Uchiha widow says firmly. "I suppose that if I can just sit on the council long enough for Chika to reach the age of majority, then we can probably get out of this mess."

Naruto sighs and looks down at his hands, scarred and prematurely twisted from years of ninja work. He is only 30 years old. He leans back and begins to wrestle his hat from the tree Chika can now see it is caught in.

In that instant, she happens to glance at her mother and catches her breath in surprise. There is mirrored the same longing that Chika's grown accustomed to in the Hokage. It's quieter, less sure, but adoration nonetheless. Gone is the wistfulness of the rose-haired child. Suddenly Chika realizes what she, herself, must look like when she's secretly watching the eldest of the Hyuuga boys, the 15-year-old with hair longer and finer than any girl's and eyes that are so very gentle.

Then Naruto slaps his hat back on and Sakura's face is schooled into it's old, familiar weary expression. She snips another peony, pink this time, the color of soft, baby-pink roses.

For the first time, Chika wonders why her mother doesn't choose him now.


	4. Reliquary

**Title:** Reliquary  
**Author:** Kit Spooner  
**Pairing:** Uzumaki Naruto and Haruno Sakura  
**Fandom:** Naruto  
**Theme:** # 23 – Candy  
**Rating:** PG/K+ for mentions of sex? Hell, I can't rate stories for shit.

Disclaimer: The characters and situations portrayed in this story are the sole property of Kishimoto-sensei and the assorted corporate types who've bought the rights. I've merely borrowed them for a brief time.

Notes: Sakura is a creepy stalker! Whee! Actually, she's not, but something doesn't flow very well here. I really need to work on this one. I think that at least some bits convey tiny pieces of what I was trying to get across. The rest seems kind of . . . odd. This was written in Borders and in an airport. shrugs Whatever.

Sakura knows Naruto very, very well, even though they only became lovers a month ago. She knows how much he loves her; she knows how his mind works.

Naruto has a perfect, photographic memory – at least where Sakura's concerned. He remembers every haircut she's ever gotten. He could recite, from memory, the time and location of every date they've been on.

He _always_ buys her the correct kind of shampoo when she sends him shopping.

Naruto's mind just sort of clicks into gear around her – not in any sort of intellectual way (Naruto will never be an intellectual), but in the way that children can just _focus_ on something, though at 25 he's certainly not a child either.

It frightened her, when she was younger, the intensity with which Naruto adored her. He's always been handsome, but when she's around he just _glows_ in a way that defies non-cliched description. Sakura is older now, and she enjoys the attention more, the loving appreciation for every detail of her being.

Naruto loves Sakura – always has and always will. It's always been a fairly simple equation for him.

Sakura is . . . different.

For much of her life, Naruto was a tousle-headed hanger-on, an annoying, slightly-younger brother to harass and henpeck and mother incessantly. She's loved him a long time – nearly as long as he – but she didn't _want_ him until more recently. These days she wonders why the hell it took her over a decade to notice how beautiful he is.

These days –

Sakura's memory isn't eccentrically perfect the way Naruto's is. She never quite remembers the numerical details of their relationship, even as new as it is. She loves him deeply, but she just _can't remember_ his shoe size or which brand of instant ramen he prefers. Her brain is already too cramped, too full of other names and numbers, like the details of chakra-enhanced metabolism, of the exact number of calories required to mold a single unit of chakra. And for all her love and capacious heart, Sakura knows the calories and the endocrinology are more important to Konoha.

Instead, Sakura requires tangible proof of things. She catalogues recipes with the same sort of stubborn, methodical determination that her medical exams took. Sakura _organizes_ things: jewelry, gardening implements, bills, weaponry, everything.

She keeps her most precious memories tucked away in safe, quiet parts of her room. In the morning, she traces the fine golden hairs left on her pillow, sometimes with wondering fingers, sometimes only with her eyes, and sometimes even with her own soft breaths against the worn cotton percale of her pillowcase. Naruto may remember with perfect clarity every date, but Sakura has all the ticket stubs for each inane film they've suffered through, waiting for the right moment to tune out the movie and begin the make-out session. The stubs live in an old cigar box beneath her bed, gathering dust and _time_. Sakura's love is laid bare in every photograph taken of the pair, he all grinning, sheepish wistfulness, she all deliberately oblivious affection, touched with a hint of familial violence. Sakura could fill a book with snapshots of Naruto cheerfully accepting her fierce headlock. Behind her night-stand Sakura keeps the old wrappers from the weird little foil-wrapped chocolate candy that Naruto likes to eat in bed after they've made love. In fact, Sakura's a little afraid to move the night-stand, lest a waterfall of red and silver scraps of foil spill her secrets across her bedroom floor.

Sakura's true prize is tucked back behind a few pairs of old socks in her dresser drawer.

The night Naruto finally seduced Sakura was a brilliant, confusing time for them both. After a night of ecstatic fumbling and sweetly fulfilling near-misses, early morning brought about an abrupt interruption: loud knocking at Sakura's apartment door. In a rush they decided that it was a bit too soon to announce such a new and fragile relationship. So Naruto pulled his boxers and pants on, ran a hand through his completely rumpled hair, and jumped out of the second-storey window.

The person at the door turned out to be Ino, who knew, from the moment she stepped into the apartment, that Sakura had gotten lucky the night before.

"And all you got was that lousy t-shirt," Ino had joked, poking Naruto's abandoned, black shirt with her sandal-shot foot, nudging it out from under the bed.

Indeed, Sakura had kept the shirt, hidden in a drawer she was fairly certain Naruto would never explore, even if he decided that he needed to check out her underwear collection. Occasionally, particularly when Naruto is away on missions, she pulls the shirt out and holds it close, breathing in what lingered of Naruto and all he represented. That stupid, smelly scrap of fabric is all Sakura's dreams and faith made tangible. She needs such physical representations of ephemeral concepts in the way she needs light and air.

Sometimes the lingering smell of Naruto – his breath and mouth and hands and _self_ – on her skin is enough to keep her drowsing in bed longer than usual in the mornings. The sun raises patterns in the dusty air as she lies there, nose pressed to the sweet-scented flesh of her arm. Naruto marks her in such a way, and he doesn't even realize it.

The scent of sex lingers on her skin until she finally creeps out of bed – generally long after Naruto has departed – and washes all traces of love from her skin, letting the shower return her to her pre-Naruto state.

_Tabula rasa . . ._

Then that evening, when Naruto returns home, bright face alight with emotions Sakura refused to acknowledge most of her life, he marks her with his memories and with his love, and Sakura begins the process all over again.


	5. More or Less

**Title:** "More or Less"  
**Author:** Kit Spooner  
**Pairing:** Uzumaki Naruto and Haruno Sakura  
**Fandom:** Naruto  
**Theme:** # 16 – Invincible/Unrivaled  
**Rating:** PG-13/T for dreadful unhappiness and some sexual situations

Disclaimer: The characters and situations portrayed in this story are the sole property of Kishimoto-sensei and the assorted corporate types who've bought the rights. I've merely borrowed them for a brief time.

Notes: Angst! Wallow in it!

1. The day after Sakura turns eighteen, she cracks and splinters and finally shatters.

Fortunately she's curled in upon herself, huddled against Naruto's nightstand, so the pieces don't fly far. Naruto gathers her shiver-shaking body – all edges and angles and uncomfortable silences – up onto the bed to tuck her against the heat he constantly radiates.

He doesn't mention either Sasuke or Kakashi and he falls asleep spooned against the hard ridge of her spine, like a muscle-and-bone barrier against the knowledge neither know how to deal with.

2. With the sunrise comes the official news: the last of the Uchihas and the Copy Ninja are both dead – each by the other's hand.

Naruto and Sakura already know this, so they don't join the inquisitive crowds that begin gossiping in the streets mid-morning. Instead Naruto makes breakfast.

"Beef or miso?" he asks his best friend when she finally staggers barefoot into his kitchen, leaning heavily against the doorframe, eyes not quite focusing.

"What?" she rasps, her throat raw from the weeping and screaming that carried her through the night.

Naruto mumbles, "Never mind," and pours boiling water into a number of cups of instant ramen. It's his comfort food and he can't quite think of a time when he's needed comfort more.

Sakura picks her way through half a cup of beef ramen, simply because she can't stand the disapproving stare that Naruto gives her when she tries to evade breakfast. Naruto slurps down six cups himself. Then they stare at each other across the tiny table in the corner of Naruto's kitchenette.

3. That afternoon, Naruto calls up Ino and asks her to gather up all of Sakura's things from the Uchiha compound and bring them over to his apartment, since he thinks Sakura won't be going anywhere for a while. Ino is surprisingly calm over the phone, though Naruto suspects it might have something to do with the presence of Chouji and Shikamaru, who he can hear talking quietly in the background.

Naruto feels a brief, vicious stab of jealousy just before he hangs the phone up. Ino has her team with her, all of them – Ino, Shika, Chou, and they're stronger for the formation.

Three is a special number, sturdy and invincible, like a tripod.

A two-legged stool topples without the third leg.

4. It is about a week after Sakura moves in with Naruto that they stop crying themselves to sleep every night.

Their days have also slipped into a routine. Naruto wakes at the crack of dawn – something he could never quite manage when he was younger – and takes a perfunctory shower. Then he pulls pants on and hauls Sakura out of bed and into the shower, sometimes in a very literal sense. There are even days when instead of bathing, she'll simply huddle, near-catatonic, in the shower stall, until Naruto strips her and bathes her himself.

It's something he would have never dreamed he'd hate doing. His younger self would have given both arms to simply see his candy-sweet Sakura naked, never mind touch her in such an intimate way. On these mornings, Sakura doesn't even weep, she simply stares, her gaze caught far into an impossible future, the future where Sasuke returned, whole in body and mind, where she was mother to the next generation of dark-eyed Uchihas.

Still, it's something that fascinates Naruto, even while he dreads it. Sakura is beautiful in her grief. Over the years since Sasuke's final betrayal, she's stopped taking care of herself. Her hair is very, very long and generally tangled, as it sometimes goes uncombed for days. Her training regimen was upped, to keep her busy while she waited fruitlessly for Sasuke's return, and she's whipcord lean, bony and angular where she was once sleek and slim. Naruto's aware enough of her to know that if not for her beautiful hair and delicate, heart-shaped face, she could pass for a boy, with her hips narrow and her breasts small.

He's diligent and gentle in his ministrations and she occasionally remembers to thank him afterwards. She realizes, even in the depths of her desperate, aching sorrow, that he is the only reason she's still alive.

He realizes that taking care of her is the only reason he hasn't left Konoha.

5. Sakura and Naruto finally return to the Uchiha compound nearly three months after the deaths of Sasuke and Kakashi. Sakura has gathered her courage and Naruto is here to help her do the final clearing of the property before it's parceled off to the as-yet unnamed heirs.

"Why did you start living here?" Naruto asks her as he helps her catalogue the linens in the main house.

Sakura is startled by the directness of the question, but only a little. She finishes folding a pearl-gray kimono, the rough skin of her fingertips catching a little on the slick embroidery, before she answers. "I was the closest thing to a wife that Sasuke was ever going to have," she replies quietly, mouth twisting into something resembling a smile. "I knew this, even Sasuke knew this, in those few lucid moments I was able to speak to him, those years ago before the end of the Akatsuki. Before he . . ."

_Before his mind was lost completely to the curse seal . . ._

"He wanted me to take care of his affairs," Sakura finishes, sliding the kimono into a cardboard box. "Sasuke . . . wanted to keep everything tidy for when he came home."

They fall silent, both staring at the dust glittering in the air stirred by their breaths.

"He loved you, you know," Naruto assures her after a while, not entirely sure whether it's for her benefit or his own.

This time her smile is bittersweet, but genuine, green eyes gleaming through her dusty, tangled hair. "He loved you too, Naruto." Her bony hand slips into his and squeezes tightly, so hard he wonders at the force of her affection. "He was going to marry me and ask you to come live with us."

Naruto's gasp is loud in the dusty expanse of the main house and he nearly chokes on his next breath. This is definitely not what he'd been expecting.

"We would have been . . ."

"A family," Naruto finished in a hoarse, strangled voice.

6. They are out on a mission a few months later when the Uchiha scion's will is finally read by the Hokage herself. When Naruto and Sakura return from their reconnaissance mission, they're called into Tsunade's office to discuss the will's ramifications.

"It's all yours," she begins.

Sakura's stare is hollow and blank, and Naruto's is full of a confusion that's so numb it's hard for Tsunade to look at him.

"The Uchiha brat left everything to you two," the Hokage clarifies. "You can divide it up amongst yourselves." She sighs. "Hell, you can paint the whole compound purple, burn it to the ground, sell it, whatever. But it's yours. The lawyers are gathering all the paperwork as we speak."

This time it's Naruto who bursts into tears, great wrenching sobs that shake his too-lanky form. Sakura pulls him close and rubs soothing circles on his back. Then she makes eye contact with her old mentor.

"Thanks, sensei," she says quietly before leading a still-weeping Naruto out of the Hokage's office.

7. In the end, most of the Uchiha district of Konoha is razed to the ground and cleared. Naruto argued against this, but after Sakura forced him to spend a few days among the abandoned buildings and shops, he finally agreed that he didn't care to share space with so many ghosts.

The properties are slowly being auctioned off, so as not to flood the market. The younger generation of Konoha ninjas, those too youthful to remember the Uchiha massacre in any detail, flock eagerly to the inexpensive building space, ready to construct new lives for themselves.

Rock Lee and Tenten purchase a lot near the place where the main Uchiha house still stands. Ino bullies Chouji and Shikamaru into helping her purchase one as well.

Naruto and Sakura decide, after several days of screaming arguments, that they won't get married. It brings too many issues into question and in the end, neither wants to compete with a dead man.

They do, however, move into the dead man's house.

Sakura ruthlessly pulls down as many of the Uchiha fan symbols as she can, but Naruto manages to keep her from doing too much damage. It's one thing to tear down the bright banners and the carved mantle decoration. It's something completely different to unscrew all of the drawer pulls, or to pry up every painted tile in the bathroom.

At night, they sleep in Sasuke's bed with Sasuke's sheets, sometimes dressed in Sasuke's night clothes.

Sometimes, Sakura turns to Naruto with a faintly smouldering look and peels his pajamas and boxers from his unprotesting body, taking her time and her fill of him. Naruto lets her because he loves her more than anything in the world and he doesn't know how else to handle the situation.

When she's done, he holds her close to him and kisses the place where the wings of her clavicles meet at the hollow of her throat, and brushes her shining fall of hair back from her beautiful, not-as-sad face.

They aren't whole, and both know this. And they don't fit together perfectly; there are too many jagged pieces and broken wounds for this ever to work the way it does in stories.

But the ghost of a boy lies between them and somehow, he eases the sharp edges and they _fit_ in some strange, wonderful way.

And if they aren't invincible anymore, no one notices, least of all the three of them.


	6. The Typhoon Song

**Title:** The Typhoon Song  
**Author:** Kit Spooner  
**Pairing:** Uzumaki Naruto and Haruno Sakura  
**Fandom:** Naruto  
**Theme:** # 17 – kHz  
**Rating:** R/M for discussion of sex and a metric crap-tonne of profanity  
**Disclaimer:** The characters and situations portrayed in this story are the sole property of Kishimoto-sensei and the assorted corporate types who've bought the rights. I've merely borrowed them for a brief time.  
**Notes:** Oh, I kill myself. dies Plus, I love Neji. He's such a complete goober.

I knew the mission was going to be a serious pain in the ass from the moment I heard about the assignment – and about who would be on my team. Naruto, ever-obliging and eager to please, is currently demonstrating how little he's changed since his incomprehensible graduation from the Academy.

"Ten-four!" he howls in my ear, via our radio com-links. "Roger, roger! Ten-four!" He's gleeful and excited to play with technology. "Can you heeeeaaaaar me Sakura-chyaaaaaaaaahn!"

I hear a quiet, feminine sigh over the radio. "Naruto . . ." our medic warns, sounding a little exasperated.

"Dude, these are awesome!" Naruto continues eagerly. There's a series of weird static-y clicks and chirps as he discovers the button used to send code across the airwaves. This goes on for a while.

"Neji!" Kiba's voice is a steady whine and I grind my teeth. "Can't you make him shut up?"

"Naruto," I mumble automatically. "Shut the hell up."

"I'm familiarizing myself with my equipment," Naruto responds smartly, sounding as though he's used that excuse before. He clicks the code button a few more times, tapping out the rhythm of some crappy pop song that's currently being played all over the place in Konoha.

I grit my teeth and feel the blood vessels pound in my ears.

But no, this wasn't enough for Naruto. He stops clicking out the code button rhythms and begins singing where he'd left off. "Oooooh, I wanna – unf, unf – love you like a – unf, unf – typhoon! Woow woow! Oooooh, baby, you make me wanna – unf, unf – uh . . . something something something . . ."

I find myself discovering – the hard way – that Naruto's musical abilities are diminished somewhat when he's sober and leaping tree to tree. My mind also shudders away from the horrible knowledge of the pelvic thrusts that usually accompany the 'unf, unf' parts when I've seen other morons singing the stupid song.

But then, just as the singing trails off and I think that disaster is averted, Naruto makes a

horrifying segue. "Oh, man, Sakura, I missed you bunches while you were out at Hidden Mist on that stupid-ass mission the old bag sent you on." He gives a lusty sigh that I immediately wish I hadn't heard. "And then we got stuck on this recon mission with Mister Cranky-Pants Hyuuga and the Wonder Twins."

Akamaru yips something in response and Kiba sniggers, so I suspect the dog had something snarky to say about the "Wonder Twins" comment.

"I . . . missed you too, Naruto," Sakura responds calmly. I'm struck by the sudden urge to somehow order her to calm Naruto the fuck down, but am not entirely sure how to phrase it in a way that would both keep Naruto from beating the crap out of me, and keep Sakura from poisoning my tea.

"Yeah, yeah," Naruto rambles. "But I really _missed _you, Sakura, if you know what I mean." There was a significant pause before he added. "Wink, wink, nudge, nudge."

"Oh, god," Kiba moaned. "Now we _all_ know what you mean."

"Fuck off, Kiba," Naruto snaps. "I barely got to even kiss her before we were dragged back out into the woods, never mind getting her to —"

"Naruto!" I've never heard Sakura actually bellow, but that's really what she did.

"Yeah, dude," Kiba adds. "Akamaru and I really don't want to know what you two freaks get up to when you're off-duty."

I'm briefly caught up in the hilarity of _Kiba_ calling someone else a freak, particularly in a sexual connotation. The whole _village_ is aware of the boy's extracurricular activities.

Naruto growls briefly, pauses, and then cheerfully resumes his quasi-rhythmic clicking of the code button on his com link.

Kiba, never the calmest person to begin with, spontaneously combusts.

"Neji!" he howls. "Make him cut that shit out or so help me I'll make him eat the damn radio!"

The clicking continues, if anything, louder than before. I'm really not sure how Naruto manages it. "Ha! I can do whatever the fuck I want, dog-boy. We're still in friendly territory so it doesn't matter."

"But the noise is hurting Akamaru's ears!" Kiba snaps irritably. "We're going to need him at the top of his game once we get to the mission site."

"And he'll need more than two days to recover from the damn radio?" Naruto is rightly incredulous. "We won't even get to stinking Wasabi Village til then, never mind begin the surveillance and stuff."

"Naruto . . ." This time, it's my warning sigh.

"What!" the blonde bursts out. "It's not my fault Kiba coddles his stupid, spoiled mutt!"

Kiba's outraged shriek overloads the microphone briefly and my ears ring in response for a few seconds afterward. Then there's ominous silence for several seconds.

"Uh, Naruto?" I tentatively ask. He's usually a good-natured idiot, but today he seems like an irritable, peckish idiot who's looking for a fight. And Kiba, being a slightly less-good-natured idiot, seems quite willing to oblige him.

Then there's a grunt, a sharp cracking noise, some rustling and rumbling noises, then a few muffled expletives.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," I hear Sakura mutter.

I quicky activate my Byakugan and locate the excitement a ways ahead of me and to the left, on the forest floor, where Kiba has dropped back from his position on point to tussle with Naruto. Akamaru has fastened his teeth around Naruto's bicep, prompting the boy to gleefully punch Kiba in the face; Kiba, teeth flashing white and quick in the dappled forest light, snarls and bites the other boy's hand.

Sakura is standing off to one side, looking angry, embarrassed and a little amused.

I'm somewhat less amused.

So I wade into the fray and bodily pull the two morons apart, kicking them both sharply in the stomach as I do so. I casually toss Akamaru into the undergrowth, ignoring his yelp.

"Okay, I'm in charge here, and this isn't the way things are going to go on this mission," I tell them in the quiet, carefully-enunciated tone that used to scare Hinata so badly that she'd wet the bed at night.

Sakura, who's been on my team for several missions, has heard this lecture before. She sighs and leans against a tree. "Here we go," she murmurs.

"As the leader of this squad, you two monkeys have to obey my orders _to the letter_. Is that clear?" I focus my glare first on Kiba and then on Naruto, both of whom are still gasping from my kick to the gut.

They nod, and I smile. It's not my nice smile. "You," I say as I haul Kiba to his feet. Akamaru slinks out from the shrubbery and crouches mournfully at his master's feet. "Keep a tighter rein on your temper, you half-wit," I tell him. "First of all, remember that while Akamaru is, in many ways, a useful member of this team, he is still a _dog_." Akamaru hangs his head.

"Second," I continue. "You _really_ don't have any room to be talking about the sexual practices of your teammates. I _know_ how you are with women. And to be completely honest, I'd probably break both your legs if you ever came near any female I was even remotely acquainted with, never mind someone I'm related to or actually _care _about." My expression of disgust includes a wrinkled nose and I hope it conveys dignified disapproval along with utter disregard for him. The Hyuugas have carefully cultivated such expressions for generations and even the children of the Branch House are instructed in their use.

I turn to Naruto, who has crept to his feet with a sullen expression that nearly mirrors Kiba's.

"You, Uzumaki, are an utter idiot," I begin with a sniff of disdain. "But you usually behave yourself on missions. What – in the name of all that is holy – is wrong with you?"

Naruto refuses to meet my eyes, instead staring at his feet while he nudges leaf mold with the toes of his sandals.

"Well?" I can hear my voice rising with impatience. A good leader is never impatient – only cool, calm, and controlled, both of his men and of his own emotions . . .

It's so quick, I nearly miss it. But I'm trained to spot such things, and Naruto's sudden, forlorn-yet-smoldering glance at Sakura is definitely noticeable.

Akamaru suddenly whines and shakes his head. Kiba listens, tilts his head to one side, and stares at Naruto. "Oh, you're fucking kidding me," he says loudly. "Akamaru says he smells like he wants to . . ." He begins to laugh.

Sakura's a smart girl, and more importantly, she knows Naruto, since she's been with him for a many years at this point. She groans and hides her face in her hands.

I sigh. These people are all jounins. Each is a master of his or her chosen field. They're also all in their mid-twenties. I wonder, very briefly, why they act like stupid teenagers out for a picnic.

"Okay," I tell them. "Here's what we're going to do . . ."

So we set up camp early for the evening. We won't lose too much time here, and I am incapable of dealing with crazed Naruto for another instant. Once the camp perimeter's secured, I send Naruto and Sakura off to "gather firewood" with careful instructions not to return until Naruto can behave himself again.

Naruto chortles merrily as he leads off a startlingly smug-looking Sakura.

"Dude, what the hell is wrong with you, Neji?" Kiba demands as soon as they're out of earshot. "Fucking while on a mission is totally against the rules and stuff."

"I was tired of the typhoon song," I reply shortly.

"Ugh," Kiba mumbles as he pitches our tents. "Me too." He pauses while hammering a stake into the ground. "So does that mean that if I was an utter bastard on a mission, and Hinata was on the mission too that you'd . . . urk."

The forest falls suddenly silent, devoid of even bird calls, as I stare down an idiot and his terrified dog. I wonder, in that quiet moment before I attack, how I could have missed the signs. I mean, Hinata's been "spending the night at a friend's house" a lot lately and, fuck, I think Hanabi's been covering for her, the little minx . . .

"Oh, shit, we're going to die," Kiba croaks to his dog. Akamaru whines and takes off into the underbrush, his ninja following a split-second after.

"I knew this mission was going to suck," I mutter before heading off to break some of Kiba's bones.


	7. The Wedding

**Title: **The Wedding  
**Author:** Kit Spooner**  
Pairing:** Uzumaki Naruto and Haruno Sakura  
**Fandom:** Naruto  
**Theme:** #5 – ano sa . . .  
**Rating:** PG/K+ for language and some discussion of sex?  
**Disclaimer:** The characters and situations portrayed in this story are the sole property of Kishimoto-sensei and the assorted corporate types who've bought the rights. I've merely borrowed them for a brief time.  
**Note 1:** I don't have problems with slash-fic or their authors. Let that be stated now. I just sometimes think the situations and pairings are a little absurd. I view Naruto as possibly the straightest boy among the four Konoha teams, with the possible exceptions of Kiba and Lee. Sasuke is as asexual as they come. Just my two cents. And my apologies for this drivel.  
**Note 2:** After brief confusion, I realized that it did, indeed, seem as though Tenten was Mrs. Uchiha. This has been edited slightly to make sure no one makes this mistake. I'm careful not to mention who Mrs. Uchiha is. And honestly, she's probably not even a named character in the series.  
**Note 3: **I fucking hate you, Document Manager. You kill me over and over. -cries-

"Congratulations, Naruto!" Sakura chirped when the man in question arrived home one evening.

Immediately on guard (and wracking his brain for forgotten birthdays/anniversaries/holidays), Naruto gave his roommate one of his usual shit-eating grins and hoped for the best. "Congratulations . . . uh, what?"

"On your upcoming nuptials!" Sakura continued, rising from the couch and throwing her arms around Naruto. She was practically _giggling_ and Naruto was on the verge of terror.

"Er?" he said.

"Apparently, all the arrangements are made already," Sakura continued dropping a playful kiss on the tip of Naruto's nose. "It'll be the romantic event of the year!"

Naruto paused. "Nuptials means wedding, right, or am I getting my words confused again?"

"Wedding, yes," Sakura agreed, puling away from Naruto and spinning across the floor in a disturbingly whirling version of a ninja waltz.

"Er," Naruto repeated. "I didn't even know you wanted to get married, Sakura-chan. You, uh, maybe should have told me before you booked the, you know, church or whatever."

"Me?" Sakura snickered. "There's no fucking way I'm marrying _you_, Uzumaki Naruto. You're a terrible cook. And you always leave the cap off the toothpaste."

Naruto's mind took another pause, took stock of the situation, and barreled on ahead. "So, do you know who I'm marrying?"

"Sasuke, of course!" Sakura laughed merrily. "Silly boy, pretending not to know about your own wedding to your own true love!" She wagged a cheerfully reprimanding finger at him.

"Sasuke?" he echoed. "Own true love?" His brain patiently reminded him: _Does not compute!_

Sakura finally stopped her dancing and flopped onto the dilapidated sofa they'd found on the side of the road (it still smelled very faintly of cat pee). "It's what the whole town's talking about," she noted. "The old lady who runs the sweet shop is offering to make the cake and Ino's mom says that she's expecting the order for flowers any day. Oh, and the old man who plays checkers out by the memorial every Sunday says that if anyone can make an unconventional marriage work, it's you." Her eyes were solemn and her expression absolutely straight.

Naruto raised an eyebrow. "Any theories on where everyone got this idea?"

"No clue," replied Sakura. "And I doubt Sasuke has anything to do with this, since he hardly ever leaves the damn Uchiha compound anymore. Always sends his little housewife out for shopping and stuff." The last was spoken in a grumble – standard for her deprecating commentary on the young Mrs. Uchiha. Naruto wasn't entirely sure whether this was because she still sort of wanted to be the Mrs. Uchiha, or whether she was embarrassed for _ever_ having wanted to.

"So . . ." Naruto scratched his head and slouched onto the couch on top of Sakura.

Sakura shoved his pointy elbows out of her gut and repositioned his head to a more comfortable location.

"Hey, wait!" Naruto sat up. "Does this mean everyone thinks I'm gay or something?"

Sakura smirked.

"Damn, I am _so_ not gay!" Naruto shouted. "I can prove it, too!" He reached for Sakura.

She shoved his hands from her breasts and smirked some more. "Yeah, but think about your groom, kiddo."

"Ew," Naruto pronounced.

"Don't think about him that way, pervert!" Sakura snorted. "Think about how it looks to the rest of the folks in the village."

Naruto obeyed, and worked the situation through in his mind. Well, it was true that Sasuke was kind of fancy, if that had anything to do with it. He washed his hair a lot and always wore clean clothes. Wore a lot of froofy Uchiha yukatas too, come to think of it. And girls always said he was pretty, though Naruto wasn't a great judge of that, what with being the manly bastion of heterosexuality that he was.

"So he's . . . uh, that way?" Naruto made a weird gesture that involved both wiggling fingers and limp wrists.

"No, Naruto," Sakura explained patiently.

"Hmm, yeah, that'd be weird, what with him being all married and stuff. What do people think about that anyway?"

"Even Tenten -- who normally knows what's going on -- thinks the woman's more of an elevated chambermaid than a wife," Sakura said. "And from the way they act around each other, can you blame the village for being a bit confused?"

"Well, they can't think he's _too_ gay, considering they've got two kids and she's knocked up yet again." Naruto wrinkled his nose.

"I think the townsfolk figure she's just a brood mare for the next generation of Uchihas," Sakura mused. "They're more caught up on the romance of you visiting him in his self-imposed isolation every couple of days."

"You visit him just as often as I do!" Naruto bellowed in disbelief.

"Well, yes," Sakura admitted with a grin. "But he rejected me when I was twelve, and as we know, people never change their minds about such things when they're in their twenties."

Naruto grinned back. "Yeah, just like you never changed your mind about me, right?"

"Yep. Still hate you, runt."

Naruto bared his teeth.

"So anyway," Sakura blithely continued. "Everyone thinks a June wedding would be lovely. Any thoughts on the bridesmaids' dresses?"

"I'm not getting married," Naruto stated firmly.

"Might want to work on convincing every other person in Konoha, kiddo."

Naruto sighed. "How the fuck am I supposed to prove that I'm really, really straight?"

"Well, it looks like cohabitating with a sexy lady isn't enough," Sakura noted. "Maybe you should try dating other girls too?"

"I don't _know_ any single girls!" Naruto huffed.

"Last I heard, Hinata was still single," Sakura suggested with a slightly vicious grin.

"Ha!" Naruto rolled his eyes. "Even I'm not stupid enough to do that. Between her psychotic cousin-turned-bodyguard and her childhood teammates, I'd be lucky to even get an audience with their princess. All three of them are in love with her, I think. And, god forbid, if her little sister were to find out, she'd hamstring me, the little savage . . ."

This time Sakura just laughed.

"You seem to be enjoying yourself," Naruto pouted. "You're poking fun at my expense."

Sakura ran a soothing hand through her boy's spiky locks. "Yes, I am, but it's only 'cause I love you, idiot-boy."

Naruto, programmed carefully to relax under certain conditions, melted like butter on a hot griddle and sagged against Sakura on the cat-pee sofa. He sighed mournfully.

"Here's what we'll do," Sakura told him gently. "I made you some dinner – no, it's not ramen – and it'll be ready in another couple minutes. Then, once we're done with dinner, you'll go take a bath, because you stink worse than the couch."

"What about the gay thing?" Naruto asked plaintively.

"Tomorrow I'll start dropping rumors that you and I are having a torrid love affair and that you have a huge breast fetish," Sakura continued.

Naruto eyed Sakura's assets and nodded. "It's sort of true. On both accounts." He suddenly smirked. "Does this mean we're going to have a torrid love affair?"

"Not a chance, runt," Sakura responded. "You know I only sleep with you when I'm drunk and just off a mission. Liquor and death-defying situations are good enough excuses." She paused. "Whoops. Shouldn't have mentioned that, I guess."

Naruto waggled his eyebrows.

"Anyway!" Sakura sang. "A few carefully placed rumors ought to do the trick."

"That'd be great, Sakura-chan," Naruto breathed, reclining his head against hers.

"Of course, there's always the chance that it'll backfire," Sakura cautioned, ruffling her roommate's hair again. "The village might start thinking I'm some vicious, jealous little bitch who's trying to break up the true love that you and Sasuke share, simply for my own shallow pleasure. The love a woman bears for a man can't compare to the love between two manly men, of course . . ." She rolled her eyes.

Naruto looked at her in utter horror. "Konoha is insane!" he exclaimed. "When the fuck did this happen?"

Sakura patted his cheek gently. "Don't worry about it, baby. I'll take care of everything, even if I have to slap around every gossip in the village."

Naruto gave her a huge, sunny smile and kissed her ear (which was about all he could reach without moving too much. They snuggled together on the ragged sofa, content with their somewhat-confusing lot in life.

"So, uh, when's dinner, woman?" Naruto asked loudly, a moment later, just as Sakura had gotten warm and very comfortable.

"Shut the hell up, Mrs. Uchiha," Sakura snapped before dozing off.


	8. The Battlefield of Love

**Title:** The Battlefield of Love  
**Author:** Kit Spooner  
**Pairing:** Uzumaki Naruto and Haruno Sakura  
**Fandom:** Naruto  
**Rating: **PG/K+ for mild language  
**Theme:** #7 – Superstar  
**Disclaimer:** The characters and situations portrayed in this story are the sole property of Kishimoto-sensei and the assorted corporate types who've bought the rights. I've merely borrowed them for a brief time.  
**Notes:** Been a while since I posted one of these. This one's been hiding on my harddrive since April. Whoops. Yeah, and also, Rock Lee is a sex god. Thxbai.

* * *

Oak trees rustled overhead as the autumnal wind rose. Naruto glanced up at the sky briefly, taking note of it's ominous cloud-cover.

"Looks like rain," he told his opponent.

Rock Lee posed on the other side of the forest clearing. "Foul weather won't save you from defeat today, Naruto!" The waning light glinted off his white, white teeth as he grinned.

Naruto bared his teeth in a feral grin of his own. "Haha, you wish!" he shot back. "I handed your ass to you last time, Lee." He cracked his knuckles.

Rock Lee began a series of warmup stretches. "Ah, but I've been training non-stop since our last bout," he warned. "On the battlefield of love, there can be only one victor!" His pectoral muscles twitched with his exuberance.

"Yeah, and that one victor will be me, doofus!" Naruto returned.

"Ha!" scoffed Lee. "You've never understood how to truly treat a woman properly, Naruto. You've never given gentle Sakura-san the sensitivity that she deserves."

Naruto scowled. "Hmph. Like you're any better, Fuzzy-Brows."

"Gai-sensei was nothing if not thorough in his education of my team!" Lee pronounced, fist over his heart. "And as a true gentleman, I will be the one to claim a victory kiss from Sakura-san!" His eyes gleamed with fervor.

"What!" Naruto bristled. "There's no fucking _way_ you're kissing my Sakura-chan, even if by some miracle you do manage to beat me. That victory kiss is mine!"

Rock Lee had enough time for one final, misty-eyed post before Naruto flung himself at his rival-in-love.

The fight was a quick, furious affair.

This was due, in great part, to the fact that Sakura herself strode into the clearing and stomped her foot down between the two combatants before the first blows had even landed.

"What the _crap_ is going on here?" she snapped irritably.

"Sakura-chaaaaan," Naruto whined as he pulled himself out of the crater Sakura's kick had created.

"We are battling for your heart, Sakura-san!" Lee explained solemnly with an abbreviated Nice-Guy Pose.

"Say _what_?" Sakura gaped.

"Er," said Naruto. "It wasn't my idea."

"I'm afraid my honorable opponent here has been overtaken by the passion of his youth," Lee countered. "It actually was his idea, Sakura-san."

"Dude, no it wasn't," Naruto shouted.

"You suggested that we both skip team training today so that we could test our skills against each other in a furious clash of wills!" Lee pronounced joyfully.

"Well, yeah," admitted Naruto. "But you were the one who brought my Sakura-chan into it!"

"Excuse me?" asked Sakura. "'_Your_ Sakura-chan?'"

"The victor wins a kiss from you, fair Sakura-san!" said Lee.

Naruto sighed and tensed for Sakura's punch/kick/swat. Instead she grabbed Lee by the collar of his ridiculous green jumpsuit and shook him vigorously.

"Lee-san! Stop being a moron!" she ordered.

"But, Sakura-san," Lee mumbled forlornly.

"You're already _married_, Lee-san," she reminded him firmly. "To Ino, in case I need to remind you. And she will literally _emasculate_ you if she ever finds out that you and Naruto were fighting to make out with some other woman."

"Oh," said Lee.

"Do I need to remind you that you don't have a crush on me anymore, Lee-san?" Sakura suggested in a slightly gentler tone.

"Hrm," Lee replied.

"You're in love with Ino," she continued. "And the two of you get up to plenty of kissing on your own. Or at least, it seems that way, considering that Ino told me today that you got her knocked up _yet again_."

Naruto perked up and grinned at Lee. "Way to go, stud!" he crowed.

Rock Lee's Nice Guy Pose was _blinding_.

Or at least it was until Sakura kicked Naruto in the head and then Lee in the stomach.

"Stop congratulating yourselves, you twits," she spat. "It's not like it takes any degree of skill to get a girl pregnant. Any moron can do it. Even _Kiba_," she added in an incredibly insulting tone of voice.

Now Lee looked pale and a little embarrassed. "I apologize, Sakura-san."

"Don't apologize to me, you idiot," Sakura snapped. "Go home and apologize to your wife and then shag her senseless or whatever it is you do to get her to forgive your complete lack of common sense."

Lee slunk off into the undergrowth very, very quickly.

"And you," Sakura continued, turning to glare at Naruto, who had been trying to sneak off as well. "What is _wrong_ with you? Can't you be left on your own for even a _little_ while?"

Naruto scratched his head and ran a hand through his golden hair. "I'm not sure how you want me to answer that one, Sakura-chan . . ."

"Did you forget that Lee-san's not the only one with a wife and kids, Naruto? How the hell do you plan on explaining to your daughter why you're coming home late from _training_, and why you have _mud and sticks in your hair_?"

Naruto surreptitiously brushed debris from his head.

Sakura sighed. "You're hopeless, Naruto," she murmured before helping him tidy himself. "What am I going to do with you?"

Naruto looked up from his sheepish examination of his sandals and gave her the big-eyed smile that made her melt – just a little – every time. "Maybe a kiss would be nice?" he suggested sunnily.

Sakura slapped him and then dragged his head down to her level and kissed him breathless, just to remind him who was _really_ in charge. "Now, put your stupid hat back on and let's get home," she told him. "Our eight-year-old daughter is demanding that her daddy help her with her _kage bunshins_ again, which, by the way, I cannot believe you taught to our _child_."

"Hee hee," Naruto chortled proudly as he picked the Hokage hat up off the ground, dusted it off, and slapped it on his head. "She's going to grow up to be a holy terror, just like . . ."

"Yes, yes," Sakura agreed, adjusting the angle of the Rokudaime Hokage's mantle. "Just like her daddy."

"Well, _I_ was going to say 'just like her beautiful, dangerous mother,'" he replied with a wink that nearly got him decked by his beautiful, _extremely_ dangerous wife.

_Nearly._

Instead she kissed him again to prove how right he was.


End file.
